User Reviews

A beautifully filmed study in the one man's obsession with riding insanely dangerous waves. The film goes beyond showing huge, deadly waves and explores the personality of the surfer, Kerby Brown. Mr. Brown is a troubled soul. Using childhood family photos and video clips the film sketches a rebellious child. For all his talk about feeling alive in the water its clear he just doesn't, or can't, find his way in society.

The movie is a bit like watching a car crash in slow motion; you know it isn't going to end well but its hard to look away. I hope Kerby Brown can find some peace in his life without destroying himself and his loving family.

In 2021's Facing Monsters, the title probably refers to the big-arse waves that inhabit the coast of Western Australia. I mean what else would we be talking about? Ogres? Yup, these breakers could swallow you whole, ascend you way deep down, and maybe injure (or kill) you. But hey, hardcore surfers don't really care. They're unmindful and borderline cray cray. They're addicted to that rush, that biting of the white cap hand that feeds them.

Facing Monsters is a documentary that doesn't quite feel like one. That's not a bad thing mind you. Sure there's archive footage here and there but absent are stuffy interviews, an overuse of title cards, and unbiased assertions. The subjects speak when they wanna speak, so natural, so off-cue, and not exacted. What actually counts is the visual palate presented by "Facing's" director (Bentley Dean). Whether he's using overhead shots, long shots, wetted close-ups, or clips following wave rider Kerby Brown barreling through the pipe, Dean's effect is indescribable (and indescribable is good). "It's where I feel most alive". Indeed.

"Facing" follows Brown and his search for the perfect wave (or the wave as Holy Grail so they say). His only brother (Courtney Brown) watches over him with hawked nuance, using a jet ski to help Kerby ditch the paddle out and catch the sweltering break.

With Bentley Dean's streamlined look and Tim Count's eerily beautiful, musical score, Facing Monsters presents a soundly numbing, viewer experience. Sometimes it's repetitive (you see the same type of billow over and over), sometimes it's suicide mission-ed, and sometimes it's foreseeable (I guess K. Brown had to get injured in the end). Oh well. As a docu that puts a rad surf monger in harm's way for no other reason than the notion of waterlogged dependence, Facing Monsters is certainly no "endless bummer".

As the reputable surfing magazine "Tracks" put it in their own review of this film "surfing movies can be repetitive"....but where they go on to say this movie is not that, I am saying it absolutely is.

Drawn in with the promise of soaking my brain with heavy kegs, I sat through this thing start to finish and counted, what, 15 actual waves? Those waves were spectacular, so it wouldn't have been so bad if it was not for the painfully cliche life-story you have to endure for the other 85 minutes.

In summary, pretty good surfer doesn't have the patience for competitions so he gets drunk a lot and accidentally starts having kids. Then he takes a job in the mining industry so he can buy heaps of jetskis and go surfing. Isn't that every surfer from WA??

Other reviews will dazzle you with claims of the "wonderment of nature", "inspired bravery" and "introspective fortitude" of the film....but it is seriously cheesy. Of course WA is a beautiful place and big waves are scary, but ok, RELAX, this is about a guy waking up early to go surfing. The film tries to grasp at an elusive meaning behind it all, like a Jungian Death Drive, and maybe it is there, but while looking for that the film misses the far more obvious story of big wave surfing- it is a completely self-centred pursuit that puts thrills first and everything else second. If we (surfers) were really that dedicated to the appreciation of nature or a future for our children as the core of our surfing, then would we really be drilling for gas on a rig in the ocean for 6 months of the year? Of course the jet skis and 4X4s gotta get paid for somehow, so we plod on through this movie with the facade of "isn't all this so miraculous" with a laughable absence of self-awareness despite the endless musing about "demons" and "facing your fears".

I did give this movie stars for the great music selection during the actual surfing, and interesting section about geology where Kerby visits a hill and talks about how it is similar to the ocean floor.

Non-surfers will love this film for the way it challenges their notion of safety and self-preservation, as well as the "wow big wave" factor. Filmy people will love it because of the edgy docu-drama style and emotive narrative.

But I found this film boring. The attempt to spin a nuanced exploration of the slab-surfer mentality failed to convince me it is anything more than self-indulgence and recklessness. Which are perfectly fine! We don't all have to win the Nobel Prize. Just don't try and convince me "it's all for the family".